Thursday, February 28, 2013

(Barnhardt.biz) If you scroll down, I made a post in January titled "Pulchra Vera",
which I intend to be a periodic feature - just a catchall post for any
little bit of beauty that I stumble across, be it music, art, poetry,
prose, pictures of beautiful things in outer space, whatever. You will
recall that "pulchra" means beauty and "vera" means true, or genuine.
So Pulchra Vera in this sense means "genuine beauty".

In this essay, however, I am going to play on those words a bit and
address the beauty of Truth Itself. Truth and beauty are both
constitutive qualities of God. Things that are true are true BECAUSE
they are congruent with or of God. One plus one equals two not because
your teachers said so, or because centuries ago a bunch of really smart
Greek guys took a vote and decided that was how it was going to be. No.
One plus one equals two because mathematical truth, as a subset of all
truth, is contained in God Himself, and it is thus extant within His
creation, and beyond that is a way for us to see and know Him. "The
heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the
work of His hands."

But what happens when the truth is actually ugly? Does it lose its
beauty? Should ugly truths be suppressed?
Should painful truths be
hidden, or even denied?

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Goodness gracious this is so important. Please pay good attention to this.

When the truth is ugly, it must STILL be declared. Boldly. Loudly.
Persistently. Failure to declare ugly truths is itself an act of
dishonesty, a bearing of false witness, and it makes impossible any
attempt to push through the superficial ugliness and get to the pure,
holy beauty beyond. If you refuse to declare ugly truths, then progress
(in the good sense of the word) is halted. Everything stops and the
only direction that has any freedom for movement is BACKWARD, away from
truth, and thus away from God Himself.

Guys, this dynamic is EVERYWHERE around us today, and it is why
civilization is going to implode any day now. No one will declare any
ugly truths, and thus we have hit the wall as a civilization.

Examples:

The Catholic church has been massively infiltrated by a cabal of
Marxist-homosexualists who hate God and are actively trying to destroy
His Church from the inside out. In excess of 90% of ethnic Catholics in
the west have stopped attending Mass in the last 50 years since the
Marxist-homosexualists destroyed the Mass and began preaching Marxism,
tolerance of infanticide and sexual deviancy. Anyone who says otherwise
is simply a liar. They are bearing false witness, no matter what their
motivation.

The entire global economy and financial system are massive,
mathematically impossible Ponzi scheme and debt bubble that can never,
ever be repaid with "money". The economy WILL collapse, there will be
war, and there will be a settlement of debt via landmass reallocation
and blood. At the top of this list of mathematically impossible and
unfixable Ponziconomies is the former United States of America. FORMER.
Democracy or representative democracy beyond the local level simply does
not work. Stupid people should have say over their own lives and
households, but stupid people should NOT have a say or vote over any
system that affects other people. The ugly truth here is that there are
within the human population spectrums of intelligence, practical
ability, management skill, psychological fitness and moral fitness. The
higher the level of governance, the more of these qualities leaders
must possess, and a leader or leaders at the highest level should
possess ALL of these qualities in abundance. Today, the world is
literally being run by people who are mentally and functionally
retarded, with many of them being sociopaths, psychopaths or at the very
least malignant narcissists. The current political order will never,
ever, ever fix any of this. Anyone who promulgates hope in "elections"
is bearing false witness, no matter what their motivation.

Islam is an evil totalitarian political system from the deepest,
blackest pit of hell, masquerading as a faux-religion. It was
consciously set up that way, and must be exterminated from the face of
the earth without remorse in order to save the souls trapped inside of
it and to prevent any more people from being victimized and destroyed by
it. Period. Anyone who says anything else is bearing false witness,
no mater what their motivation.

These are just four macro examples. I could go on and on and on. Now,
an interesting question for YOU. Why are you here? Why do you read me?
Why are you all so attracted to my jeremiads? My stock and trade
rhetorically is basically talking about horrific, ugly truths that no
one else will talk about. Why are you attracted to that? Why do I get
all of these emails and hand-written letters describing me as "a breath
of fresh air" and the JOY people experience from reading my essays and
watching my videos about horrifically ugly truths?

Because ladies and gentlemen, TRUTH is BEAUTIFUL. Even when it reveals
something so ugly that you can barely stand to look at it.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the ultimate manifestation of
this is Christ Crucified. This is why we have crucifixes - not just
crosses but crucifixes with Christ nailed to the Cross. The crucifix is
the most beautiful image in the world, because it reveals the most
beautiful truth in the world by first making us push through horrific
ugliness. The horrific ugliness is God Incarnate, perfect and sinless,
whipped until He is skinned and nailed naked to a tree … BECAUSE WE PUT
HIM THERE BY OUR SINS. How can this possibly be beautiful? Because it
is the complete expression and manifestation of God's love for man.
When man asks, "Is there a God and does He care about me?" the only way
to fully answer that question is by showing him an image that is so
horrific that it makes us wince and look away. But then we look back.
And look. And look. And look. Because what we are looking at is
TRUTH, and truth is beautiful, but only so long as we don't try to
"clean it up" or make it "easier to swallow". When you try to make ugly
truths either more palatable, or even try to obscure them all together,
you are embracing a lie. God died a horrific death for your sins and
thus you sins CAN be forgiven because first you ARE a sinner, and your
sins are HORRIFIC - but you have to have the antecedent before the
corollary: you have to have the CROSS before you can get to the
Resurrection. The Catholic church HAS been massively infiltrated and
suffered a massive destructive catastrophe in the last 50 years at the
hands of Marxist-sodomites. Until this is acknowledged and acted upon
with holy intransigence, there will be nothing but continued erosion and
destruction. The global economy is going to collapse. The United
States of America no longer exists. Beating dead horses is insane.
Nothing will happen until civilization seeks a new horse. A major war
is going to have to be fought to purge the earth of islam and save the
people of good will trapped within it. Islam is a cancer, and cancers
must either be cut out, or they will kill you.

Denial of ugly
truths only leads to more and more ugliness. Denial of ugly truths is
exactly what satan wants. Satan wants humanity to believe that there is
no sin, there is no hell, everything is just fine in the Church and
there is no problem - especially with sodomite priests and lesbian nuns,
one plus one equals seven or thirty-four or whatever you want it to
equal, government can solve all of our problems - not that there is
anything wrong to begin with, infinite amounts of free stuff can be
distributed and theft can be executed by oligarchs ad infinitum with
zero consequences, and if we will all just hold hands and have a group
hug we can all get along and coexist.

And so I now link to the
very ugly and very serious report by the priest in Poland that has blown
open the story on the horrific sodomite infiltration of the Catholic
Church, and all I can say is YEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAWW!! YAY! YAY! YAY!
FINALLY! THANKS BE TO GOD! WOOHOO! Because the Truth is a beautiful
thing, no matter how ugly it appears on the surface, it must first be
shouted from the mountaintops in order to have ANY HOPE of pushing
through to the other side, which is nothing less than God Himself.
PULCHRA VERA.

“How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can? But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death.”- Pope Benedict XVI

"This past Wednesday I was in part of the hospital that was devoted to people who have memory problems like my father. The people here may have no idea who I am but they light up at the sight of a collar. People who cannot carry on a conversation click “on” and join in prayer as if there were little wrong with them, their faces relaxing in this moment of peace amidst the chaos of illness."- Fr. Valencheck

"The priest's life is not his own. He does not live it for himself and his personal fulfillment, but for the salvation of souls."- Fr. Richtsteig

"I am convinced that if we simply follow the liturgical books, say the texts and carry out the gestures properly, in a style continuous with our tradition, the Church’s liturgy has power the capture minds and hearts and transform them.

I starting forming this conviction before I became a Catholic through my experience of Novus Ordo Masses done in an entirely Roman traditional style, closely following the books.

The late Msgr. Richard Schuler would eventually articulate to me in words what I was experiencing in the church. "Just do what the Council asked… do what the Church asks."

Why is worship well executed according to the mind of the Church so effective?

Christ is the true Actor in the sacred action of the Church’s worship. He makes our hands and voices His own as He raises our petitions and offerings to the Father for His glory and our salvation.

Christ’s Holy Church has determined the way by which we may have this encounter with mystery in the liturgy, be taken up in the sacred action.

Although we have the right to our Rite celebrated as the Church desires, liturgy is not about me or us or even you in the pews." - Fr. Zuhlsdorf

"After celebrating Mass facing the Lord I can report these favorable effects from the priest's point of view:

1. I don't have to worry about where to look
2. I don't have to worry about what my face looks like
3. I can weep at the beauty and wonder of it all without concern
4. I can worship more freely and fully
5. I feel more at one with the people of God
6. I am on a journey to God with the people
7. I am not the focus of attention
8. The elevation of the host and the Ecce Agnus Dei have become more of a focus
9. I feel more part of the great tradition
10. I can't see who's not paying attention and feel I have to do something to get their attention back." - Fr. Longenecker

"My rector in Denver, when he was a young priest, was eating dinner at his secretary's house, a widow from Sicily. Thinking he was polite he said, 'If you wish you can call me Michael.' She stopped, put her hand on her hip, and, pointing at him with her wooden spoon, said, 'Don't think I call you Father because I think you're better than me! I call you Father to remind you who you're supposed to be and how you're going to be judged by our Lord!' He passes that lesson on to all his seminarians."- Fr. Andrew

Decalogue Against Temptation

1. Do not forget that the devil exists.
2. Do not forget that the devil is a tempter.
3. Do not forget that the devil is very intelligent and astute.
4. Be vigilant concerning your eyes and heart. Be strong in spirit and virtue.
5. Believe firmly in the victory of Christ over the tempter.
6. Remember that Christ makes you a participant in His victory.
7. Listen carefully to the word of God.
8. Be humble and love mortification.
9. Pray without flagging.
10. Love the Lord your God and offer worship to Him only.